Italian Rice Salad

Menu: Italian Rice Salad; Steamed Broccoli with Lemon and Basil Oil; Strawberry-Kiwi Salad

Lessons learned:

1. Ingredients are everything.
2. Chocolate mint is my favorite mint.
3. Choosing wines by their cutesy labels usually doesn't pay off, but sometimes it does!

Italian rice salad has turned out to be one of my favorite weekday meals.  It requires very little cooking, is very hard to screw up, and it has some of my favorite flavors.  And since it goes so well with an Italian red, I just can't help opening a bottle!  Tonight I went with a 2009 Cabernet called Monogamy.  Let me just reprint what's on the back of the label:

"You know you've experimented.  It's a way to discover what you like.  And what you don't.  What makes you happy.  What satisfies your soul.  It's how you know when you've found the one.  The one that makes you say, 'Sorry, I'm with Cabernet.'  When you've met the love of your life, is there really any reason to keep looking?"

If I had read that when I bought it, I might have just put it back.  I mean, there is surely something romantic about a good glass of wine, but let's not get carried away.  Anyway, I think I got it because it was on sale at New Leaf Market.  But it's actually quite good!  I hope there's some left when I get back from the coffee shop tonight.

Tonight, after many long days, my husband was home for dinner and we all ate together!  The kids ate some prosciutto, cheese, and broccoli, but mostly loaded up on this:

OK, maybe my food photography leaves something to be desired.  I'm learning!  Anyway, those green flecks right there?  Chocolate mint.  Yeah.

But back to the rice salad.  The key is ingredients.  For almost everything in this dish, there is a cheaper substitute you could use and it would really be fine.  Instead of Arborio rice, you could just use regular white or brown rice.  Instead of prosciutto, you could use bacon, ham, or salami.  You could leave out the pine nuts entirely.  Instead of fresh mozzarella, you could use regular.  If you don't have homegrown herbs and don't want to buy fresh ones, you could use Italian seasoning.  And it would still be a decent weeknight dish that covered the bases.  But it wouldn't be something that you really look forward to eating.  And I just need to mention that I tried the fresh mozzarella from Earth Fare for the first time tonight.  SO good.  Highly, highly recommend.

I think the two most harmless substitutions would be the rice and the meat.  I'm not sure I really noticed the difference between Arborio rice and the white sushi rice we buy in a huge bag for a much better price.  Bacon instead of prosciutto would be different, but probably just about as good, since everyone in my house loves bacon.  Of course, then I'd have to cook it, and one of the things I love about this dish is that the only thing you need to cook is the rice.

So here's the recipe.  I think just about any Italian salad dressing would work pretty well, but tonight I still had some basil oil leftover from last week's soup, so I emulsified it in red wine vinegar with salt, pepper, and garlic.

Italian Rice Salad

2 cups Arborio rice
2-3 cups of fresh tomatoes
3-4 ounces prosciutto
6 ounces fresh mozzarella
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 large garlic clove
Salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh basil
2 tablespoons fresh oregano

1/4 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup fresh grated hard Italian cheese, such as Parmiggiano-Reggiano

Cook the rice using your preferred method, leaving time for the rice to cool before mixing the salad ingredients into it.  Chop the tomatoes, prosciutto, mozarella, and herbs into bite-sized pieces.  In a small bowl, mix the garlic, salt, and pepper into the red wine vinegar, then whisk in the olive oil to emulsify it.  Mix the tomatoes and prosciutto into the cooked rice, including as much of the tomato juice as you can preserve.  Next, gently mix in the mozzarella and toss everything with the dressing, herbs, and pine nuts.  Top it off with the grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano and enjoy.

Makes 4 servings.